Republicans stepped up their attacks on the Obama administration over a deepening Veterans Affairs healthcare delay scandal on Thursday, but House Speaker John Boehner again declined to join a growing list of lawmakers calling for Virginia Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign, according to The Associated Press.
At a news briefing, Boehner said he was not still convinced that Shinseki's ouster would solve the VA's problems, the AP reported. Instead, he sought to keep the pressure on President Barack Obama for VA scheduling abuses that covered up months long delays for veterans' medical care appointments.
"I'm going to continue to reserve judgment on General Shinseki," Boehner said, according to the AP. "The question I ask myself is, is him resigning going to get us to the bottom of the problem, is it going to help us find out what is really going on? The answer is no."
The scandal exploded earlier this month after VA doctors in Phoenix came forward with allegations that some 40 veterans had died while waiting months for primary-care appointments, the AP reported.
The inspector general's report confirmed that 1,700 veterans were being held on a secret waiting list that allowed Phoenix VA officials to report much shorter waiting times, data that was used in bonus award calculations, according to the AP.
The chorus of lawmakers calling for Shinseki to leave grew on Thursday with Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida joining the fray, saying that the inspector general's report "not only confirmed our worst fears about rampant mismanagement and institutional neglect at the VA, it also revealed the problem is even worse than we thought," the AP reported.
Rubio is sponsoring a bill that would be identical to House-passed legislation that would give the VA secretary more authority to fire or demote executives for poor performance, according to the AP.
